Reed's Grocery closing after 35-year run

Thousands of cars and trucks pass by Wayne Reed's convenience store on Rice Mine Road every day of the week. The problem is, most of them aren't pulling into the parking lot of Reed's Grocery.

By Steve Reeves,Staff Writer

NORTHPORT - Thousands of cars and trucks pass by Wayne Reed's convenience store on Rice Mine Road every day of the week.The problem is, most of them aren't pulling into the parking lot of Reed's Grocery.The type of old-fashioned country store where bags of dog food share shelf space with life jackets, and the owner is on a first-name basis with most of the customers who pop in for a Coke and a bag of peanuts or a tank of gas, Reed's Grocery is closing its doors for the final time at the end of the month. 'I've stood in here and cried with several of my customers,' he said. 'It's been a tough year.'Reed said there is no single reason for the ultimate failure of his store. A bad economy coupled with rising gas prices certainly haven't helped. And the slow-moving traffic on Rice Mine Road has simply been the coup de grace.Rice Mine Road is in the midst of a massive widening project intended to ease congestion in a rapidly-growing area of the county. But the traffic jams resulting from the construction have created headaches for motorists who often find themselves stalled during their drive to and from work.Because of the heavy traffic, motorists heading toward New Watermelon Road often simply can't turn left into Reed's store.'It's so hard to get into my parking lot,' Reed said. 'People heading home in the evening will turn into one of the stores on the other side of the road because it's easier for them.'The widening project began in May and is scheduled to be complete sometime in the late fall. Workers are widening Rice Mine Road between the Paul W. Bryant Bridge approach and New Watermelon Road to three lanes and adding curbs, gutters and sidewalks.Reed said the traffic problems created by the road work and the impact it's had on his business have simply forced him to confront a harsh reality.'I should have done it a year or two ago but I kept fighting it,' he said. 'I finally had to admit to myself I was just keeping my head above water.'David Ford, a management and marketing professor at the University of Alabama who teaches entrepreneurship, said so-called mom-and-pop stores like Reed's Grocery are falling victim to 'economies of scale' — they simply cannot compete with much larger corporate-owned stores.

'If you're a little mom-and-pop and a chain moves in next door, there's nothing you can do,' Ford said. 'They're getting their gas cheaper, they're getting their snacks and drinks cheaper.'

Corporate-owned stores are able to negotiate much lower prices on just about everything they sell, he said. 'Even if you can sell at the same prices as they do, you're not making the same margins,' Ford said. 'It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on small-business owners.'Reed's Grocery began in 1973, when Reed's father, Joe Reed, opened a store on Hargrove Road, near Harry's Bar. 'We had the coldest beer in town and the best prices,' Wayne Reed said. 'We were just a little community store.'Joe Reed's Grocery, as it was called then, prospered for several years, and then Wal-Mart came to town. 'Wal-Mart ate into our business,' Wayne Reed said. 'Before that, people would stop by our store on their way home from work.'Joe Reed moved the store to Rice Mine Road in 1987. The store then was a simple cinder-block building and quickly found success selling two country store staples: bait and gas.

The area near Rice Mine Road and New Watermelon Road has transformed over the years from a sleepy little patch of woods north of town to a bustling scene of convenience stores, restaurants and apartments — classic urban sprawl.

Wayne Reed said his father treated customers like they were family members.'A kid would come by for gas but they wouldn't have any money,' Reed said. 'We'd let them get 10 dollars worth of gas and their daddy would come by later to pay us.'Reed took over the store from his father in 1994. He set about making improvements to the store and at one point opened up a video-rental shop next door. That was successful for a while until Movie Gallery moved in nearby and killed his video-rental business.

The Movie Gallery would eventually go out of business, but it was Reed's first brush with what was to come as more development came to the area.'There was nothing out here back then,' Reed said. 'At one point I had the monopoly out here. I wasn't getting rich but I was supporting my family.'Reed tried to keep up with the times. He started keeping the store open until 10 p.m., whereas his father always closed the doors promptly at sundown.

Then a Speedmart Food Store, now a Kangaroo Express, moved in, the first of the big chain convenience stores to set up shop in the area. Later came a Buddy's Food Mart. Both are large, modern stores less than a half mile from Reed's Grocery.

'At first they didn't affect me much because I had a lot of loyal customers,' Reed said.

There's also a Publix Supermarket and a CVS Pharmacy not far away, not to mention various restaurants, a self-storage warehouse and mammoth apartment complex.

'There's been a lot of change out here, that's for sure,' Reed said on a recent weekday morning as a couple of customers wandered in, one looking for brake fluid and another wondering when Reed would get another shipment of gas.Convenience stores, even mom-and-pop ones like Reed's Grocery, depend almost entirely on sales of snacks and other items to make a profit. Gas is simply the lure to get them into the store. Most store owners will quickly point out they make little if any profit from selling gas.'And if they pay with a credit card, I just break even,' Reed said.Reed said his store's fate is simply a sign of the economic times.'It used to be somebody could come in with $10, buy $7 in gas and get a Coke and some snacks,' he said. 'Now the whole $10 goes to gas.'Reed looked around his store, the walls decorated with dozens of photos, almost all of them related to the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide football team. One of the photos is of Reed posing with the legendary Paul 'Bear' Bryant, on whose last championship team Reed served as a student manager.'I really don't know what's next,' he said.Reed leases the building that houses his store, so he can't make any money by selling out to someone else.He has four children, either in college or preparing to go to college. He's applied for a couple of sales jobs, but hasn't heard back from any potential employers. If he's worried, he tries hard not to show it.

Reed notes that his store's closing is not without irony — it was exactly 35 years ago this month that his father first opened in the original location. Reed said the last couple of years have taught him a hard lesson.

'There's not many mom-and-pops left because you can't compete with the big boys.'